A Texas appeals court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that struck down a lawsuit seeking to invalidate a 2015 voter-approved referendum extending term limits for city officials.

At issue in the suit was Proposition 2, a ballot measure that changed Houston's charter to limit elected officials to two four-year terms instead of the previous cap of three two-year terms.

Community activists Phillip Paul Bryant and James Scarborough alleged in their lawsuit that former mayor Annise Parker and the city of Houston used "deceptive ballot language" to "selfishly expand term limits."

Parker was term-limited out of office and did not receive a longer term due to the ballot referendum, which easily passed.

Eric Dick, an attorney for Bryant, said he would appeal the case.

"I said from the beginning it's going to be decided in the Supreme Court of Texas," Dick said.

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He contended that the court is likely to strike down the term limit extension because it has previously objected to ballot language surrounding a drainage fee used to fund the ReBuild Houston program and tossed the wording Parker initially used for her embattled "Houston Equal Rights Ordinance."

In this case, Dick argued that the city's ballot language obscured the nature of the vote by asking whether voters wanted to "limit the length for all terms," when, in fact, the change lengthened the maximum term of office by two years.

In its ruling, however, Texas' First Court of Appeals found that Prop 2's ballot language "substantially submitted the measure with such definiteness and certainty that voters were notmisled."

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"Proposition 2 stated to voters that the Charter would be amended to allow elective officials to serve no more than two four-year terms in the same office," the court's ruling reads. "That is substantially what the proposed Charter amendment provided. It was not necessary that the ballot language include every detail contained in the proposed measure."

In a statement, Mayor Sylvester Turner said he was "grateful that this matter can now be put to rest, and the citizens of Houston can finally have certainty as to the terms of their mayor, controller and city council members."

Jasper covers City Hall, local politics and breaking news for the Houston Chronicle through the Hearst Journalism Fellowship program. He previously covered Bexar County and local politics for the San Antonio Express-News. Jasper graduated from Northwestern University in 2017 with degrees in journalism and political science. He has interned for the Tampa Bay Times, Washington Post and Fortune magazine.